Barnaby Roper Cuts to the Quick With the Spectacular Fashion Film Iris

Quote:

Fall’s most devastating looks are dissected and energized in today’s cut-and-slice extravaganza, Iris, starring supermodel (and current campaign star for Trussardi, MaxMara and DSquared2) Iris Strubegger. “All of my fashion films are named after the model,” says director Barnaby Roper, a photographer turned filmmaker whose previous work includes music videos for artists including Robyn and OK Go, as well as a series of edgy, adrenaline-packed and technologically innovative films for Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio. “I’m interested in showing these people… letting the viewer into the model,” he continues. “You never hear a model talk.” In a previous film with Natasa Vojnovic he changed all that, asking her to strip nude and reminisce about her upbringing in Bosnia. When it came to working with Eniko Mihalik, he went for a different, but equally innovative approach, creating an interactive film in which users could cut between various shots of Eniko (and different clips of music) by tapping their keyboards. "I've done a lot of music videos and it’s like kids don’t even look at the three-minute videos anymore," he says. "They’ll watch the first 30 seconds and then they’ll skip to the end. That’s why interactive films are so good. I’ve been told that babies, little babies, love Eniko because they’re pressing buttons. That’s where that idea came from almost––kids, a baby toy." In today's video he displays his supreme editing skills, conducting visual experiments upon the geometry of Strubegger’s body as she spins around a fixed axis, clad in a series of increasingly exaggerated looks. It’s all driven by the shutter-like editing, inspired in part by the surrealist’s favorite parlor game: exquisite corpse. “It’s the rhythm of the edit that’s the key to the film, the key to all films,” says Roper. Read more about Roper's obsession with editing and the films that inspired his love for the mixing board here.